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A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge on the Pleasure Palace of Kubla Khan)
From the evolutionary view of the biosphere, the Kingdom Protista—which comprises the unicellular eukaryotic organisms (protozoa, algae, and slime molds)—is primitive to "higher" life forms—multicellular animals and plants—yet among its members is manifested the greatest complexity of cell structure known. Exemplary of this point are the diatomaceous algae (Bacilliariophycea), whose cytoarchitecture exhibits perhaps the most exquisite geometry seen in the natural world1 (figure 1).
Diatoms are truly microorganisms—too small to be seen with the naked eye. With an average diameter of 25 microns (10-6 meters), four individual diatoms could be laid across the breath of a human hair.
In terms of population numbers, however, diatoms are a huge component of the earth's biota, making up about 90% of all living organisms in the ocean (there are also species of diatoms inhabiting fresh water). These and other photosynthetic phytoplankton constitute the trophic base of the ocean's food chains, responsible for the production of some 130,000 million tons of organic carbon per year. As such, diatoms play a vital role in the earth's ecology. And to those students of nature who are receptive to it, they give us a lesson in the philosophy of design and its significance.
Diatoms have been a marvel to microscopists since Ernst Haeckel's mid-19th century descriptions of the first of what now amount to some 10,000 species living today, and in the fossil record. The fascination is with the geometrically intricate structure of the cell wall. As for other kinds of algae and the cells of plants per se, the cell wall of diatoms contains cellulose. The special orientation of the cellulose microfibrils is guided by an array of microtubules in the cortical cytoplasm, which in turn becomes a determinant of cell shape. In concert with the deposition of silica (as silicic acid, Si[OH]4, taken up from the environmental milieu) a topography of elaborately sculpted patterns of grooves, flanges, and spicules is established; as these are inlaid with hydrous silicon oxide, the diatoms' opaline shells, or tests, are produced. This patterned framework is repeatedly perforated with minute pores, or fenestrae (figures 2,3), through which pseudopodial cytoplasmic processes pass in the course of nutrient acquisition and locomotion. The result is one of astonishing beauty—perfect symmetry, top to bottom, left to right, and front to back, in a plethora of geometric shapes—circles, squares, triangles, ovals, stars, and rectangles (figure 1). (Note, silica is the stuff of which opals are made [more mundane substances composed of silica are sand, quartz, chert, and glass]. The biogenic opaline structure of diatome tests indicates that millions of years would not necessarily be required for the formation of these gemstones as it is commonly purported.) Like other algae, diatoms contain the green pigment chlorophyll, but the presence of additional pigments, notably the yellowish xanthophylls, give these organisms a rich golden brown hue. The artistry is further embellished by the way in which diatoms reproduce, which is usually by cell division, but with a twist. Diatom cell walls consist of almost identical halves which fit together like a box fits into its lid. With division, each half separates and produces a slightly smaller shell that fits within the old one, a scheme reminiscent of Russian Matrishka dolls. Subsequent divisions result in a succession of ever smaller daughter cells, until a minimum size limit is reached. A process of sexual reproduction, by means of spores (gametes), is then activated, giving rise to diatoms of the original size.
Altogether, diatoms are aptly referred to as jewels of the sea. Fabergé's finest creations pale in comparison to those of the Creator!
Diatom shell structure is species specific; i.e., all organisms of the same species have essentially the same shell shape and infrastructure (though there are minor individual variations, so that no two diatoms are exactly alike), but the pattern is different for each species. Thus, as a character of taxonomic significance, it may be inferred that diatom shell structure is determined, ultimately, by genetic information. Meanwhile, the geometric diversity displayed appears to be non-adaptational—i.e., undiminished by natural selection. This is beauty for its own sake, unfettered by evolutionary pragmatism!
Nonetheless, for all their aesthetic qualities, diatoms are also a practical environmental resource. As photosynthetic autotrophs, they manufacture their own nutrition, which in turn represents a substantial percentage of the earth's annual production of organic carbon. In the process they are significant consumers of carbon dioxide and are responsible for the production of much of the earth's atmospheric oxygen. Their syntheses include that of a very high quality oil (comparable to peanut, linseed, and cotton oils) occupying up to 10% of the cell's volume (the diatoms use this oil as a metabolic energy reserve). While chemically different from that found in oil fields per se, it is not unlikely that fossil beds of diatoms containing billions of cubic feet of these microbes have contributed to the earth's hydrocarbon deposits. As primary producers, diatoms constitute the major food item for many fish (supplying among other nutrients most of the vitamin D found in fish oils) and other aquatic animals, including the largest of all—whales. Diatomaceous earth (deposits of their sedimented siliceous tests—diatomite rock from fossil beds, furlers' Barth from more recent sediments) has industrial application as a fine abrasive and is used in filtering and insulating materials. When absorbed by diatomite (which Alfred Nobel knew as Kieselguhr), nitroglycerine becomes stable and thus we have dynamite. Diatoms have proven extremely useful as guide fossils to the geologists' location of petroleum deposits for the oil and gas industry. Ecologically, they significantly impact the inorganic chemical concentrations of the aquatic environment, especially of silica, nitrates, and phosphates, playing a major role in their cycling between the animate and inanimate components of the biosphere. Under certain circumstances (e.g., fertilizer runoff, resultant phosphate pollution and microbial blooms), this can have the adjunctive function of purifying fouled water supplies.
Besides diatoms, planktonic organisms for which silica is a structural component, are the silicoflagellates and some of the radiolarians. A group of protists resembling diatoms in their form are the polythalamian foraminifera. They differ from diatoms in having tests of calcium carbonate. The obvious function of these shells, siliceous or calcareous, is that of an exoskeletal support system, one perhaps adjunctive to their buoyancy, though most protists get along very well without them (see, e.g., the shell-less radiolarians).
Geometric form is also seen in purely physical (abiotic) systems, as in the case of crystals. Indeed, most solid matter has orderly atomic arrangement and is of crystalline structure when a solid is formed gradually from a fluid (a notable exception is glass). Outward form is bounded by smooth, planar, symmetrically arranged surfaces (facets) which develop in response to directional forces within the growing crystal itself. Each chemical element (or compounds thereof, e.g., salts and oxides) tends to crystallize in a definite and characteristic form. The apparently infinite variability of form exhibited by snowflakes—every snow crystal is unique in its precise configuration—is due to the unlimited variation in the specific micro-weather conditions under which they are assembled (combinatorily, the number and distribution of ice nucleation centers in a developing snowflake are infinitely variable, thus the chance of a repeat becomes mathematically impossible).
Engineers, who by and large are less prone to flights of evolutionary fancy than biological theorists, note that one characteristic of functional design is elegance.1 Where natural systems are the example, reference is to an essential elegance, one more fundamental than mere appearance; beautiful outward form is a reflection of economical design. To a consideration of the design principle, it is significant that the geometry exhibited by diatoms goes above and beyond the aforementioned intrinsic organizational properties of physical matter—e.g., crystalline geometry—in its informational determinants, which, as embodied in the organisms' genetics (vice supra), are extrinsic to the components of the shell structures themselves. The intricate micromorphology of these organisms is neither predictable nor constrained by the physical qualities of its constituent elements, noting that biogenic silica as opal has no inherent crystalline structure (cf. Iithogenic silica), but in the solid state is amorphous. Cf. the case of snowflake formation where I = 0 (see below), information is a quality which when imposed on a dynamic system reduces an indefinite number of possible outcomes to a singularity—as we have it in the species specific form of diatom shells.
Thus, if I0 = 0 (when no information is available, I1 ‡ 0 (when information is gained), P0 is the probability for possible outcomes, P1 = 1 (when, as a result of specifying information, a single outcome is selected), then:
In the totality of our human experience, there is but one source of meaningful information, and that is intelligence. Proponents of chaos theory might have it otherwise. To a non-theistic evolutionist, who would perforce gainsay the impingement of creative intelligence on the natural world, what is perceived as design in biological systems is attributable to the organizational properties of matter itself, or a stochastic trial and error process in the evolution of the genetic base. Yet the same evolutionist has no problem with identifying artifacts such as arrowheads for what they are and accordingly attributing to them an intelligent source, with the conviction that such geometric shapes, albeit much less complex than those manifested by diatoms, do not form by mindless chance. Why are diatoms, so exquisitely complex, so singularly beautiful to study?
The answer is in Romans 1:20: "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."
In all their aesthetic intricacy, could diatoms be simply the calling card of the Master Designer? With that in mind, we dedicate this paper to the memory of Dr. Richard Bliss, who was so quick to comprehend and appreciate design in nature— its source—and who was so effective in educating his students—K through faculty colleagues—to that principle.
1 M. Armitage, Creation Research Society Quarterly, vol. 31 (1994): 167-160. This paper should be consulted for a bibliography of the points addressed in the present article. Also see M. French, Invention and Evolution: Design in Nature and Engineering (Cambridge University Press), C. Froede, CRSQ 32:11, and P. Treguer et al., Science 268:375-379.
* Mark Armitage is the president of MicroSpecialists and a student in biology at the ICR Graduate School.
** Dr. Lumsden is Chairman of the Biology Department at ICR and Professor of Biology at The Master's College.


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One of the latest editions to Porsche Driver's Selection is the Porsche 2018 calendar. The 13 new motifs pay tribute to the motorsports roots of the current range of Porsche models. In addition to the annual collector's coin, the calendar contains digital features that can be accessed via QR codes. The Porsche 2018 calendar focusses on the Porsche Development Centre in Weissach, more specifically in Flacht, which is known as the heart of Porsche Motorsport.
Please contact our Parts Department on 01684 880109 or email email@example.com if you are interested in this item.
© 2024 All rights reserved to Porsche Centre Tewkesbury and its licensors.
*Data determined in accordance with the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) as required by law. You can find more information on WLTP at www.porsche.com/wltp . For Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) range and Equivalent All Electric Range (EAER) figures are determined with the battery fully charged, using a combination of both battery power and fuel.
Values are provided for comparison only. To the extent that fuel and energy consumption or CO₂ values are given as ranges, these do not relate to a single, individual car and do not constitute part of the offer. Optional features and accessories can change relevant vehicle parameters such as weight, rolling resistance and aerodynamics which may result in a change in fuel or energy consumption and CO₂ values. Vehicle loading, topography, weather and traffic conditions, as well as individual driving styles, can all affect the actual fuel consumption, energy consumption, electrical range, and CO₂ emissions of a car.
** Important information about the all-electric Porsche models can be found

subset: commoncrawl


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Motunrayo Anikulapo-Kuti, a daughter of late afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti has revealed why she does not like Davido.
The daughter of afro-beat maverick, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Motunrayo Anikulapo-Kuti, has revealed how much she dislikes Davido and his music.
In a chat with Showtime , Motunrayo who takes after her fearless late father explained.
"Last week, I contacted an Instagram page that has been promoting Davido to post and promote a content I've and they said since I'm Fela's daughter I should pay N20,000. I told them I couldn't afford N20,000 but N10,000. I later said I would pay N15,000 because I had just N20,000 in my account and I couldn't exhaust all of it. They made jest of me saying 'Oh, Fela's daughter had only N20,000 in her account'. This is one of the reasons I don't like him; I've never liked him."
She added:-
"There was a time he came to Afrikan Shrine and sat on my chair; I told him he was sitting on my chair that I was older than him with more than 8 years, that, he should get up for me. I advised him not to think that because he's Davido he can just come and sit on my chair. He eventually stood up though."
Many may see Davido as one of the richest musicians on the continent but that doesn't seem to move Motunrayo as she boasted that she is ten times richer than him.
"I've royalties I collect and my net worth is ten times more than Davido's. If I begin to think of how long I've been making money or when I started making millions, Davido had not dreamt of making the money he's spending now", she said.
Speaking further, she condemned his kind of music, classifying it as crap music.
"I don't think Davido is a good artiste, I don't like him. I've never related to his songs because he usually sings about girls, love, money and I'm not interested in that kind of music.
I want music that would give me intelligence, music that would make me feel okay when I'm in a particular situation, not songs that would be telling me about a woman, a gold digger, an expensive shoe, accessory or whatever.
"That's why I love Nicki Minaj; if you listen to her hardcore songs you'll get a lot of intelligence from it", she said.


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For more information about what cookies are, how they work, and how to disable or control them, we recommend looking at the Information Commissioner's Office page on cookies.


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Harmcor Plumbing & Heating has helped hundreds of Stony Plain residents with their plumbing needs since we opened up shop in 1990. Our customers love our upfront transparent pricing, 24/7 anytime service, and industry leading expertise. Our dedication to customer service has helped us earn an A+ Better Business Bureau rating and a 9.4/10 rating on Home Stars with over 100 reviews!
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- From columns of cloud streaking over the Caspian Sea in January to vast tracts of cleared forest in Bolivia in December. In 2008, the NASA Earth Observatory has captured more stunning images of the Earth.
"Cloud Streets Across Caspian Sea": one of many images available at NASA's Earth Observatory.
The accompanying photo gallery is a just small taste of the hundreds of images available. The Earth Observatory online library stretches back to 1999, providing a graphic snapshot of how nature and man create changes on the surface of the planet.
In February, dust storms can be seen curling off the coast of Morocco, carrying plumes of sand out across the Atlantic Ocean. NASA suggest that these storms could be the result of stresses on the land surface -- such as overgrazing and damage to vegetation -- caused by humans.
A satellite image taken in March shows a section of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica, measuring 41 kilometers by 2.5 kilometers, crumble away into the sea. And the image of Tokyo at night looks like a giant electrical circuit board -- which, of course, it is.
Meanwhile, south of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, the geometric shape of irrigated fields reveal a man-made collage of rivers and crops while the swollen waters of the Mississippi break the levees in Gulfport, Illinois in June 2008, leaving homes submerged and lives in ruin.
Hurricane Bertha, the first of the 2008 Atlantic season, gathers strength in July and was a record breaker. "Since reliable records began in the 1940s, no hurricane has ever formed so far east before August 1," NASA reports.
Two hundreds miles above Central Asia, the skies are visibly calmer as polar mesospheric clouds are captured on film. While the earth is still shrouded in darkness, the clouds are illuminated by the first streaks of sunlight. NASA says that polar mesospheric clouds are not uncommon over Northern Asia. Some researchers link increased observations of them to climate change.
A picture taken by an astronaut shows the Amazon burnished in gold as the light of a setting sun transforms the appearance of the river and its tributaries in Brazil. While the iridescent waters off the coast of Texas and Louisiana reveal the environmental jolt of a storm surge created by Hurricane Ike.
A contrasting aftermath of nature's force can be seen in the image of the charred peaks of the Chino Hills in southern California which show the extent of damage caused by the recent fires. iReport.com: Are you a stargazer? Share your images
All the images are available in hi-resolution and are free to access. So next time you're bored at work, rather than hunting down the latest salacious celebrity gossip, click on to NASA's Earth Observatory and see the world through new eyes.
All About NASA • Nature and the Environment


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BMS/AstraZeneca post more good news on dapagliflozin
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Bristol-Myers Squibb/AstraZeneca's first-in-class SGLT2 inhibitor dapagliflozin has passed two more Phase III trials, bringing its total late-stage successes to date up to five. Additional trials are underway, but the companies say they are on track for an EU filing by the end of this year. Filing plans in the US will depend on the results of an ongoing cardiovascular safety assessment for the novel drug.
You may also be interested in...
Pfizer's tanezumab hits a nerve (growth factor)
Experimental drugs rarely face setbacks because they are too effective, but Pfizer's novel nerve growth factor antagonist tanezumab might number among the unlucky few. Phase II data presented this week in the NEJM show that the monoclonal antibody relieved osteoarthritic pain, but an accompanying editorial proposed that in doing so the analgesic enables physical activity that can lead to excessive wear and tear on fragile joints.
AstraZeneca moves syk kinase inhibitor into Phase III trials
AstraZeneca has enrolled the first patient in the pivotal programme for the first-in-class Syk kinase inhibitor fostamatinib (previously known as R778). Fostamatinib, which it licensed from Rigel Pharmaceuticals, is being evaluated as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in patients with an inadequate response to disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), including methotrexate (MTX).
Michael J. Fox foundation to spend $40 million on search for Parkinson's biomarkers
The Michael J. Fox foundation has launched a $40 million, 5-year initiative to identify biomarkers of Parkinson's disease progression. The scheme, called the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), will be carried out at 18 sites in the US and the EU, and will track 400 patients with newly diagnosed disease as well as 200 who do not have the disease.


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US House passes Dream Act
The House of Representatives voted to pass the Dream Act on Wednesday night, catapulting to the Senate a bill that would offer a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came to the country when they were children.
"This is about a commitment to our future," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, speaking after more than an hour of emotional debate between lawmakers Wednesday night. "It's about a recognition of what these young people can mean for our country."
The Dream Act would give conditional green cards to undocumented immigrants if they graduate from high school and pursue a college education or military service. After a 10-year waiting period, they could obtain permanent residency if they met all the requirements, and they could eventually apply for citizenship.
The 216-198 vote fell largely on partisan lines, though 38 Democrats voted against it and eight Republicans voted for it.
UC Berkeley student Ju Hong was effusive as he watched the proceedings on C-Span at a coffee shop near campus.
"I don't know how to describe it. I'm really excited about it right now," said Hong, whose mother brought him to the United States from South Korea when he was 11. "It's going to be really tough in the Senate, but now that the House has passed it, it's going to bring a little more pressure."
The Senate vote could happen as early as Friday morning, but the bill faces a bigger hurdle there because it must get a filibuster-proof majority of at least 60 votes.
Hong, a political science major, left a final exam study session with nervous excitement, trying to study but aware that the congressional proceedings will have a huge impact on his life.
"The Dream Act is the only solution for me right now," Hong said. "This is a really critical week. If the Dream Act fails this year, it's going to be really tough the following year and the following year."
The 21-year-old played varsity basketball at Alameda High School, worked under the table at a local restaurant to raise money for college and became a high honors student and student body president at Laney College before transferring to UC Berkeley. When he graduates, however, he will be unable to get a professional job, and faces a constant risk of deportation, he said.
Beneficiaries would have to be under 30 years old to qualify and must have arrived in the country before their 16th birthday. According to the House version voted on Wednesday, they will also pay $2,525 in fees for the privilege of legal residency — $525 to apply, and $2,000 five years later to extend the conditional visa.
California is estimated to have about a quarter of the more than 800,000 people who could benefit from the act.
"It's the right thing to do for these young people," said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, speaking on the House floor earlier in the day. All of California's House Democrats voted for the bill, with the exception of Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, who did not vote at all. Most California Republicans voted against it. Two Republicans, Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, and George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, also did not vote.
"Shall we further punish these 800,000 young people with deportation or by keeping them in legal limbo, or should we allow these highly motivated youth to attend colleges and become productive members of our society?" Lee asked fellow lawmakers. "The answer should really be quite obvious."
Republicans complained that House Democrats were trying to ram the bill through in the lame-duck session, not giving lawmakers enough time to review changes and amendments that had been made in recent days. Most of the amendments made the bill more strict. Many also warned that the bill would invite fraudulent applications and would encourage more illegal immigration.
Many of the House Republicans who condemned the bill most forcefully Wednesday referred to the act as a nightmare, not a dream, and argued it would unfairly harm U.S. citizens who would face more competition from newly legalized immigrants in college admissions, federal loans, work-study programs and the workforce.
"It would put them ahead of most American citizens and legal immigrants," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, who called the bill an "affirmative action amnesty nightmare" that would particularly hurt non-minorities.
Of the handful of Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote with the Democratic majority, the most vocal supporters were three Cuban-American lawmakers from Florida.
"We are a meritocracy," said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Florida, one of the bill's cosponsors who urged fellow Republicans to vote for it.
The White House spent weeks publicly touting the bill as something that would boost the economy, academic achievement and military recruitment. Giving undocumented immigrants the right to work through the Dream Act would reduce the deficit by between $1.4 billion and $2.2 billion over 10 years because of income and social insurance taxes, according to reports by the Congressional Budget Office that came out days before the vote.
In the following decade, however, the bill could increase the deficit by more than $5 billion as immigrants become eligible for social services, according to the same reports.
The Dream Act once had the support of many Republican lawmakers, but most now oppose it as a mass amnesty, as do some Democrats. That means an uphill fight in the Senate, where the bill would need the support of some Republicans and most of the 58 Democrats.
Source: mercury.com


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The wastewater of the city is collected and treated by MMSD (Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District). There are four components on the utility bill. Two of these components are billed on behalf of MMSD. 1) The MMSD connection charge. 2) The MMSD volumetric charge is based on water usage. 3) The local sewer charge covers operation and maintenance costs. 4) The storm water fee is mandated by the state to manage storm water quantity and quality on all impervious surfaces. The latest rate amounts are printed on the back of the bills as well as on our website. Detailed information can also be found on under Municipal Codes Chapter 14: Municipal Utilities and Chapter 33: Storm Water Utility.
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Copyright © 2003 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply.
This document explains how to use the current CSS test suites, provides a description of the officially adopted CSS test suite format, and instructs how to write a test suite in this format.
Sample text and hyperlinks from test suites are presented in this document with a thin grey border like this: test suite text. test suite hyperlink. Sample hyperlinks from test suites are not underlined to avoid misrepresenting them as actual hyperlinks in this document.
The CSS working group published the first version of the CSS1 Test Suite on the 11th of May 1998. This test suite introduced much of the format and structure of current CSS test suites. On 24th October 2001, the CSS working group published the CSS Mobile Profile 1.0 Candidate Recommendation and decided that the mobile profile also required a test suite.
Since the mobile profile referred to features already defined in previous
CSS specifications, there was a strong desire to reuse previous tests rather
than write new tests. During a CSS working group teleconference it was
suggested that the tests in the test suite should be separated
into test pages and navigation pages, specifically using the
element in order to facilitate reuse of the tests
Based on that discussion, a member of the CSS Working Group took the initiative to attempt a test suite experiment - a version of the CSS1 Test Suite with its test pages separated into navigation pages and test pages. The TNG Test Suite Experiment was demonstrated at the August 2002 CSS Working Group ftf meeting.
As noted in the minutes of the meeting, numerous implementations were able to use the new test suite format without difficulty, including a cell phone browser. The TNG format was subsequently adopted as the official primary test suite format for test suites produced by the CSS working group. The CSS1 Test Suite was updated to use the new format, and the CSS Mobile Profile 1.0 Test Suite was produced in the new format. In addition, the Selectors Test Suite now includes several TNG versions for each of the document languages tested.
As of this writing there are at least three test suites which use the official CSS test suite format:
Most of these are directly written in the TNG format (CSS1, CSS Mobile Profile 1.0), and thus their cover pages are consistent and recognizable. The Selectors Test Suite is written in a meta-format which is then used to generate several variants, including the TNG format, for several document languages. For such test suites, you have to first click on a link or two to select the cover page for the variant of the document language that you want to test.
The cover page of a test suite contains a table of contents, structured parallel to the specification being tested. Often a test suite contains a -- Prologue which documents among other things requirements or recommendations for a specific system configuration, or suggestions for setting your system preferences in such a way as to minimize their interference with the tests themselves.
Get started with running the tests in a test suite by clicking on the first numbered link in the table of contents (skipping over the -- Prologue), or by clicking the get started here hyperlink that many test suites provide on their cover page.
On every following page, there will be a [Next] hyperlink that will take you linearly through each section, subsection and test of the test suite, finally bringing you back to the cover page at which point you have completed the test suite. On any of these pages you can always backtrack this linear order by following the [Previous] hyperlinks.
On every page that contains a test, you should see the test content
immediately below the abovementioned hyperlinks. Instead of the test itself,
you see a Test
hyperlink, then your browser doesn't properly support the
element. No matter, simply click the Test hyperlink to
navigate to the test itself. After viewing the test, use the Back
functionality in your web browser to return to the navigation page for that
test and proceed to the next page by clicking the [Next] hyperlink.
The test content is self-describing - that is, the test content contains a textual description of what the page should look like according to the test, e.g. This sentence should be green.
The current test suite format is the evolutionary culmination of the work of many contributors over several years. Along the way several principles were identified that aided in the design and advancement of the format.
This should go without saying, yet the existence of numerous invalid 3rd party test suites (even some hosted at W3C!) which do not pass the simplest of validators underscores the importance of emphasizing this principle. In essence, all files in the test suite, whether navigational or tests themselves must at a minimum pass the W3C Validator. In addition, if the relevant selectors, @-rules, properties and values have been added to the W3C CSS Validator, then the all test suite files should also pass the W3C CSS Validator.
Simplicity is always a good design principle. In the case of a test suite, keeping the format simple helps minimize unintended effects from the format itself. In addition, a simple format also makes it easier to author the test and navigation pages.
There are very few easy to access and easy to run test suites at W3C. The ratio of RECs to Test Suites is large and only getting larger, when it should be shrinking until it approaches 1. Others have noted that the task of authoring test suites often demands the allocation of significant time and resources. To reduce the effective cost of producing test suites, and therefore hopefully increase the number of test suites that are produced, it is only logical to adopt of the principle of ease of authoring.
Not wanting to depend on any particular tools, or any particular platform, or device for that matter, we interpret the principle of ease of authoring to imply that the test suite format must be easily hand authorable, that is, easily authorable with only the use of a simple text editor.
Another way of looking at the problem of a dearth of W3C test suites, is to ask which is the bigger problem - the lack of fully automated W3C test suites which are presented in numerous variants for every conceivable document language, or the lack of W3C test suites period? Is a simple test suite better than none at all? The experience of the CSS working group, with the CSS1 Test Suite, and the many compliant and interoperable implementations that followed, demonstrated fairly clearly that a simple test suite is far far better than none at all.
Corollary: a simple test suite within a few months is more useful, and thus preferred to, a more complex, more fully featured test suite a year or more from now.
When writing a test suite for a particular technology (e.g. CSS), it is often necessary to utilize other technologies (e.g. HTML, DOM etc.) in the construction of that test suite. Test suite authors must be careful while testing one technology, avoid testing other technologies. Those other technologies should be authored to be maximally compatible, in a way that is most forgiving to the various user agents which will be using the test suite.
Specifically, when writing CSS test suite should not try to test:
Consequently, CSS test suite files should:
A test suite should contain at least one atomic (meaning, testing a single feature at a time) test per feature or area.
A test suite should contain at least one basic test for each explicit feature of a technology. In the case of CSS, there should be at least one test for each rule, selector, property and value type. Note that some value types, such as <length>, may take a number of different units. For such value types, there should be at least one test for each unit, but that does not mean that every such unit must be tested on every property.
In addition, a number of additional composite, devious, evil, and failure (error checking) tests should be written for any issue that is likely to be mis-implemented. In writing these tests, experience with existing implementations is a great help. As implementations progress, new areas worthy of being tested will come to light, and the test suite should be updated regularly to track these developments.
Test cases should describe in prose, in the test cases themselves, what is expected. Each test case should at a minimum describe correct behavior. Error handling tests should at a minimum describe incorrect, or possibly unexpected behavior.
Test suites should begin with simpler, easier test cases, and proceed to more complex, more challenging tests. This makes sense both from a test case authoring perspective, since simpler cases are easier to author, and from an technology implementer's perspective, since simpler cases are easier to implement.
Finally, as with any set of principles and requirements, there are some non-requirements. These non-requirements are exactly that - they are features not required of a test suite. They may be desirable, or even included - yet they are not necessary to produce a test suite.
A separate document has been written to give guidelines and techniques to use when authoring CSS test cases.
The SVG Test Manual documents additional Principles Applicable to Test Suite Content . Future test suites authors should consult these principles as well.
The test suite format consists of several different kinds of pages. At the core are the test pages themselves that exercise the features of the technology. Each test page is referenced by a navigation page that also references the previous / next navigation pages, and its section page. The test suite starts with a cover page, which links directly to each of the section pages. This document describes these pages from the inside out.
The test page format is documented in a separate document, which also includes a template.
Each test page is contained within a navigation page. The navigation page
starts with a heading documenting the test suite, followed by the numerical
section of the specification being tested which is also used for the page
, e.g. CSS1 Test Suite: 1.1 Containment in
HTML. A horizontal rule separates the heading from the following links:
[Previous] [Next] [Section] [Contents] [Specification]
The Previous and Next hyperlinks link to the previous and next navigation pages respectively. Previous of the first navigation page of a section links to that section page. Next of the last navigation page of a section links to the next section. And Next of the last navigation page in the suite links to the cover page.
The Section hyperlink links to the section page for all the navigation pages for this section of the specification being tested. The Contents hyperlink links to the cover page of the test suite. The Specification hyperlink links to the specific section of the specification being tested.
The navigation page transcludes the test page with an
element, which references the test file using the
attribute and explicitly sets the type
of the
expected data to "text/html"
. In order to encourage a user agent
to use the entire width of the document, and the remainder of the document,
both the width
and height
attributes are set to
The <OBJECT>
element was chosen because it is present
in all "current" versions of HTML, from HTML 4.0 Transitional, to XHTML
Basic, to XHTML 1.1. This permits user agents which support any one of these
languages to easily utilize the navigational pages. In addition, the
element provides an excellent immediate fall back
mechanism for user agents that either happen to not support
, or that have difficulties transcluding HTML
Inside the <OBJECT>
element is a simple Test hyperlink which
directly links to the test file. Thus user agents that do not recognize the
element and therefore ignore its markup, show the
simple hyperlink instead, thereby providing access to the test file.
The navigation pages use valid HTML 4.0 Transitional, which is the most compatible version of HTML for present day user agents. In the future, XHTML 1.0 Transitional which follows the XHTML 1.0 Appendix C guidelines may be more compatible across more user agents. XHTML Basic, again following the XHTML 1.0 Appendix C guidelines, may also be more compatible. Since the navigation pages are separated from the test pages, this could easily change in the future without having to change the test pages. Similarly, the test pages could be updated to use XHTML Basic for example without having to update the navigational pages.
Lastly, the navigation pages are named "sec" followed by the section number of the section being tested (without periods, e.g. 1.1 becomes 11) with the extension ".htm". E.g. "sec11.htm". Note that the navigation file has no test content whatsoever. This allows the test file to be updated to fix problems in tests without having to update navigation files.
For each chapter in the specification, there is a corresponding section page which hyperlinks to the navigation pages of all the tests for that chapter. The section page format very much resembles the navigation page format.
The section page contains a flat list of hyperlinks to the specific navigation pages, in specification order, and labeled with the respective section and subsection (and potentially subsubsection) of the specification. E.g. 1.1 Containment in HTML
The list is demarcated on both top and bottom by horizontal rules, and a link bar with the following links:
[Previous] [Next] [Contents] [Specification]
The Previous hyperlink links to the last navigation page of the previous section. The Previous of the first section (typically a -- Prologue section) simply links to the test suite cover page. The Next hyperlink links to the first navigation page of this section.
The Contents hyperlink links to the cover page, and the Specification hyperlink links to the respective section in the specification.
Similar to the navigation pages, the section pages are also titled with a
heading documenting the name of the test suite, followed by the numerical
section of the specification. This heading is also used for the page
, e.g. CSS1 Test Suite: 1.0 Basic
Concepts. The section pages are also written in valid HTML 4.0
Transitional, and named "sec" followed by the top level section number with a
trailing "0" and the extension ".htm". E.g.
A test suite's cover page begins with the W3C logo and a heading stating
the name of the test suite which is also used for the page
. E.g.
CSS1 Test Suite
A short paragraph of text introduces the test suite, and documents its purpose, usage, and any caveats. Another paragraph minimally explains the structure of the test suite itself. Any additional test suite specific documentation should be placed in the -- Prologue. A subheading labels the Table of Contents which immediately follows the introductory text.
The table of contents is a simple list of numbered hyperlinks ( e.g.: 1.0 Basic Concepts ) to the section pages. Following the numbered section pages for the tests, there may be one or more lettered pages for test suite appendices, such as A. Acknowledgments, B. Test Suite Errata, and C. Related Resources.
A horizontal rule separates the Table of Contents from the cover page footer. The footer contains a mailto hyperlink for test suite feedback, the proper validation stamps (HTML, CSS), and recognition of the organizations responsible for the production of the test suite, along with their respective logos.
The authoring of a test suite for a particular specification begins with the identification of testable assertions in the specification grouped by section and subsection of the specification.
Try to make use of existing test pages. Some specifications, such as profiles, do not contain new features of their own. New versions of specifications often build upon features of older specifications. In both cases, it should be possible, and it is desirable, to reuse existing test cases.
Start by creating a new directory for your test suite, and copying the necessary support files (listed below). All test suite files for your test suite will go into this one directory.
Using the templates listed below, author navigation pages for each feature
and their respective testable assertions. If possible, author navigation
pages which refer to tests from previous test suites. Use a relative URL in
the data
attribute of the <OBJECT>
tag, and
of the anchor
, to refer to test
pages from previous test suites. Replace the heading and document
with the name of the test suite, the subsection
number and title. Fix the link bar hyperlinks (Previous, Next, Section,
Specification) to point to the appropriate files.
For navigation pages which require new tests, write new test pages, also
starting with the template listed below. Be sure to update the document
to be the same as the corresponding navigation
After completing all the navigation (and necessary test) pages for a section in the specification, write the section page (again, there is a template which can be used as a starting point). Once the section pages have been completed, construct the cover page and related support pages (Prologue, Acknowledgments, Test Suite Errata (hopefully fairly empty to begin with), and Related Resources). Templates aren't included for for the related support pages, but they can be easily written starting from the respective pages in the CSS1 Test Suite.
Congratulations, you've authored a test suite.
These templates are derived from the latest version of the CSS1 Test Suite, with a small bit of cleanup, so there may be minor inconsequential differences.
The template for a navigation page is shown below, and is also available as a separate file: secnntemplate.htm
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <TITLE>CSSn Test Suite: n.n Subsection Title </TITLE> <META http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> <LINK rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="static.css">

CSSn Test Suite: n.n Subsection Title

 [Previous] [Next] [Section] [Contents] [Specification]

 <OBJECT height="100%" width="100%" border="0" type="text/html" data="testnn.htm">Test</OBJECT>
The template for a section page is shown below, and is also available as a separate file: secn0template.htm
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <TITLE>CSSn Test Suite: n.0 Section Title</TITLE> <META http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> <LINK rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="static.css">
CSSn Test Suite: n.0 Section Title

 [Previous] [Next] [Contents] [Specification]

 In this section:

n.1 <TT>Subsection 1</TT>

n.2 <TT>Subsection 2</TT>

n.3 <TT>Subsection 3</TT>

n.4 <TT>Subsection 4</TT>

n.5 <TT>Subsection 5</TT>

n.6 <TT>Subsection 6</TT>

n.7 <TT>Subsection 7</TT>

 [Previous] [Next] [Contents] [Specification]

The template for the cover page is shown below, and is also available as a separate file: indextemplate.htm
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <TITLE>CSSn Test Suite</TITLE> <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> <LINK REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" MEDIA="screen" HREF="static.css"> <LINK rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" href="W3C-rsrc-test.css" media="screen" title="Experimental W3C Styles">
 CSSn Test Suite

 The CSSn Test Suite is provided as a way for vendors and page authors to test their browser's conformance to the CSSn specification.

 For each feature, there is at least one page which tests the feature in various ways, using HTML 4.0 markup. The test pages are broken out into a number of sections which reflect the structure of the CSSn specification itself, in addition to a Prologue and a few appendicies.

Table of Contents

-- Prologue

1.0 Section 1

2.0 Section 2

3.0 Section 3

4.0 Section 4

5.0 Section 5

6.0 Section 6

7.0 Section 7

 A. Acknowledgments

 B. Test Suite Errata

 C. Related Resources

 Feedback regarding the CSSn Test Suite should be sent to <TT>firstname.lastname@example.com</TT>.

  The CSS1 Test Suite is a joint effort of the World Wide Web Consortium, and the (your company/organization name here).


text:
The Ravens' inside linebacking corps took a hit this offseason with the departures of Ray Lewis and Dannell Ellerbe.
Their attempt to replace them in the lineup won't be limited to signing free agents or drafting rookies later this month. They'll also be moving defensive lineman Bryan Hall to inside linebacker this offseason, a switch that isn't exactly out of left field. Hall played one preseason game at linebacker before last season and played the position at Arkansas State, so he was a natural candidate to move back to his old spot with the Ravens thinner at the spot than they used to be.
"Coach Harbaugh told me, 'We want to look at you at inside linebacker,' and I said, 'I'm down for it.' I'm a football player, first and foremost, and I love football. I'm just looking for an opportunity to progress as a football player," Hall said, via Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun. "I think I've got the instincts. I'm a football player. Put me in any position, and I can play. I'm a student of the game. I work hard. Whatever's in front of me, I can do. I'm excited."
Hall, who played five games for the Ravens last year, has dropped about 15 pounds from his 2012 playing weight and has some more to cut before he'll be back into a linebacker's body. Albert McClellan and Jameel McClain are the most experienced inside linebackers on the roster, but things are pretty open behind them for Hall and anyone else to carve out a spot for themselves on the roster in the future.


text: This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-10-155T entitled 'Defense Acquisitions: Rapid Acquisition of MRAP Vehicles' which was released on October 8, 2009. This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. Every attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as text descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes placed at the end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, are provided but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this document to email@example.com. This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately. Testimony: Before the House Armed Services Committee, Defense Acquisition Reform Panel: United States Government Accountability Office: GAO: For Release on Delivery: Expected at 8:00 a.m. EDT: Thursday, October 8, 2009: Defense Acquisitions: Rapid Acquisition of MRAP Vehicles: Statement of Michael J. Sullivan, Director: Acquisition and Sourcing Management: GAO-10-155T: GAO Highlights: Highlights of GAO-10-155T, a testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Defense Acquisition Reform Panel. Why GAO Did This Study: As of July 2008, about 75 percent of casualties in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were attributed to improvised explosive devices. To mitigate the threat from these weapons, the Department of Defense (DOD) initiated the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) program in February 2007, which used a tailored acquisition approach to rapidly acquire and field the vehicles. In May 2007, the Secretary of Defense affirmed MRAP as DOD's most important acquisition program. To date, about $22.7 billion has been appropriated for the procurement of more than 16,000 MRAP vehicles. My testimony today describes the MRAP acquisition process, the results to date, lessons learned from that acquisition, and potential implications for improving the standard acquisition process. It is mostly based on the work we have conducted over the past few years on the MRAP program. Most prominently, in 2008, we reported on the processes followed by DOD for the acquisition of MRAP vehicles and identified challenges remaining in the program. To describe DOD's approach for and progress in implementing its strategy for rapidly acquiring and fielding MRAP vehicles, we reviewed DOD's plans to buy, test, and field the vehicles and discussed the plans with cognizant department and contractor officials. To identify the remaining challenges for the program, we reviewed the results of testing and DOD' s plans to upgrade and sustain the vehicles. What GAO Found: DOD use of a tailored acquisition approach to rapidly acquire and field MRAP vehicles was successful. The program relied only on proven technologies and commercially available products; established minimal operational requirements; and undertook a concurrent approach to producing, testing, and fielding the vehicles. To expand limited production capacity, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts were awarded to nine commercial sources, with DOD agreeing to buy at least 4 vehicles from each. Subsequent orders were based on a concurrent testing approach with progressively more advanced vehicle test results and other assessments. To expedite fielding of the vehicles, the government retained the responsibility for final integration in them of mission equipment packages including radios and other equipment. DOD also made MRAP its highest priority acquisition, which helped contractors and others more rapidly respond to the need and meet production requirements, in part by early investing of their own capital to purchase steel and other critical components in advance of orders. Schedule and performance results for MRAP were very good overall. In July 2008, nearly all testing was completed; the Marine Corps had placed orders for 14,173 MRAPs; and, as of May 2008, 9,121 vehicles had been delivered. As of July 2009, 16,204 vehicles have been produced and 13,848 vehicles fielded in two theaters of operation. Total MRAP production funding was about $22.7 billion, mostly through supplemental appropriations. In terms of lessons learned, MRAP's success was driven by several factors, including quick action to declare its acquisition DOD's highest priority and giving it a DX rating, which allowed access to more critical materials than was otherwise available. The availability of supplemental appropriations was also essential. However, while neither of these factors are practically transferable to other programs, decisions to 1) use only proven technologies, 2) keep requirements to a minimum, 3) infuse significant competition into contracting, and 4) keep final integration responsibility with the government all led to positive outcomes and may be transferable. Challenges to MRAP remain in its reliability, mobility, and safety, which required some modifying of designs and postproduction fixes, and adapting how vehicles were used. Also, long term sustainment costs are not understood and the services are only now deciding how MRAP fits them in the longer term. GAO's multiple best practices reports have underscored the need for the use of mature technologies, well understood requirements, systems engineering knowledge, and incremental delivery of capabilities to enable quicker deliveries. Finally, a broader lesson learned is that it is time to invest the time, money, and management skills in the science and technology community to enable the effectiveness we expect from the acquisition community. View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-155T] or key components. For more information, contact Michael J. Sullivan at (202) 512-4841 or email@example.com. [End of section] Mr. Chairman and Members of the Panel: I am pleased to be here today to discuss rapid acquisition programs within the Department of Defense (DOD), with a focus on our work on the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles as a case study example. As of July 2008, about 75 percent of casualties in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were attributed to improvised explosive devices. To mitigate the threat from these weapons, the DOD initiated the MRAP program in February 2007, which used a tailored acquisition approach to rapidly acquire and field the vehicles. In May 2007, the Secretary of Defense affirmed MRAP as DOD's single most important acquisition program. To date, about $22.7 billion has been appropriated for the procurement of more than 16,000 MRAP vehicles. My statement today describes the MRAP acquisition process, the results to date, lessons learned from that acquisition, and potential implications for improving the standard acquisition process. It is mostly based on the work we have conducted over the past few years on the MRAP program. Most prominently, in 2008, we reviewed and reported on the processes followed by DOD for the acquisition of MRAP vehicles and identified challenges remaining in the program. [Footnote 1] In that report, to describe DOD's approach for and progress in implementing its strategy for rapidly acquiring and fielding MRAP vehicles, we reviewed DOD's plans to buy, test, and field the vehicles and discussed the plans with cognizant department and contractor officials. To identify the remaining challenges for the program, we reviewed the results of testing and DOD's plans to upgrade and sustain the vehicles. We conducted that performance audit from June 2007 to July 2008 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Background: In February 2005, Marine Corps combatant commanders identified an urgent operational need for armored tactical vehicles to increase crew protection and mobility of Marines operating in hazardous fire areas against improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms fire. In response, the Marine Corps identified the solution as the up-armored high-mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicle. Over the next 18 months, however, combatant commanders continued to identify a requirement for more robust mine-protected vehicles. According to the acquisition plan, in November 2006, the Marine Corps awarded a sole source indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract [Footnote 2] and subsequently placed orders for the first 144 vehicles to respond to the urgent requirement while it conducted a competitive acquisition for the balance of the vehicles. In February 2007, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition approved MRAPs entry into production as a rapid acquisition capability. In September of 2007, the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics designated MRAP as a major defense acquisition program[Footnote 3] with the Marine Corps Systems Command as the Joint Program Executive Officer. Quantities to be fielded quickly grew from the initial 1,169 vehicles for the Marine Corps identified in the 2005 urgent need statement to the current approved requirement of over 16,000 vehicles split among the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Special Operations Command, plus others for ballistic testing. Three versions of the MRAP vehicle were acquired for different missions: * Category I, the smallest version of MRAP, is primarily intended for operations in the urban combat environment, and can carry up to 7 personnel. * Category II is a multi-mission platform capable of supporting security, convoy escort, troop or cargo transport, medical, explosive ordnance disposal, or combat engineer operations, and carries up to 11 personnel. * Category III, the largest of the MRAP family, is primarily intended for the role of mine and IED clearance operations, and carries up to 13 personnel.[Footnote 4] MRAP vehicles were purchased without mission equipment--such as communications and situational awareness subsystems--that must be added before the vehicles can be fielded to the user. The military services buy the subsystems for their vehicles and provide them as government furnished equipment to be installed at a government integration facility located at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in Charleston, South Carolina. Acquisition Strategy Was Tailored and Had Special Priority: DOD used a tailored acquisition approach to rapidly acquire and field MRAP vehicles. The program established minimal operational requirements, decided to rely on only proven technologies, and relied heavily on commercially available products. The program also undertook a concurrent approach to producing, testing, and fielding the most survivable vehicles as quickly as possible. To expand limited existing production capacity, the department expanded competition by awarding IDIQ contracts to nine commercial sources. To evaluate design, performance, producibility, and sustainability, DOD committed to buy at least 4 vehicles from each vendor. According to program officials, subsequent delivery orders were based on a phased testing approach with progressively more advanced vehicle test results and other assessments. To expedite the fielding of the vehicles, the government retained the responsibility for final integration of mission equipment packages including radios and other equipment into the vehicles after they were purchased. DOD also designated the MRAP program as DOD's highest priority acquisition, which helped contractors and other industry partners to more rapidly respond to the urgent need and meet production requirements. Finally, some of the contractors involved in the acquisition responded to the urgency communicated by the department by investing their own capital early to purchase needed steel and other critical components in advance of orders. The decision on the part of the contractors to purchase components in advance of orders was not required under their contracts and was done at their own risk. DOD leadership took several steps to communicate the importance of producing survivable vehicles as quickly as possible, for example: * In May 2007, the Secretary of Defense designated MRAP as DOD's single most important acquisition program and established the MRAP Task Force to integrate planning, analysis, and actions to accelerate MRAP acquisition. * The Secretary also approved a special designation for MRAP--a DX rating--that requires related contracts to be accepted and performed on a priority basis over other contracts without this rating. * The Secretary of the Army waived a restriction on armor plate steel, which expanded the countries from which DOD could procure steel. * DOD allocated funds to increase steel and tire production capacity for MRAP vehicles as these materials were identified as potential limiting factors for the MRAP industrial base. DOD recognized that no single vendor could provide all of the vehicles needed to meet requirements quickly enough and invited vendors to offer their non-developmental[Footnote 5] solutions. The request for proposal made clear that the government planned to award one or more IDIQ contracts to those vendors that were determined to be the best value to the government. The Marine Corps awarded IDIQ contracts to nine vendors and issued the first delivery orders in early 2007 for 4 vehicles from each vendor for initial limited ballistic and automotive testing. One vendor could not deliver test articles in the time required and the Marine Corps terminated that contract at no cost to the government. According to program officials, vehicles from another vendor did not meet minimum requirements and the Marine Corps terminated the contract for convenience. Conventional DOD acquisition policy dictates that weapons be fully tested before they are fielded to the user. However, the need to begin fielding survivable vehicles as quickly as possible resulted in a phased approach designed to quickly identify vehicles that met the requirement for crew protection so they could be rapidly fielded. This approach resulted in a high degree of overlap between testing and fielding of the MRAP vehicles; orders for thousands of vehicles were placed before operational testing began and orders for thousands more were placed before it was completed. Figure 1 shows the concurrent nature of the overall test plan. Figure 1: MRAP Developmental and Operational Test Plan: [Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Phase I: Mid-2nd quarter, 2007 through end of 3rd quarter, 2007; Phase II: Mid-3rd quarter, 2007 through early 3rd quarter, 2008; Phase III: Early 4th quarter, 2007 through end of 4th quarter, 2008; IOT&E: Early 1st quarter, 2008 through end of 4th quarter, 2008. Source: GAO based on DOD information. [End of figure] The Director, Operational Test & Evaluation approved the MRAP Test and Evaluation Master Plan in 2007. Candidate vehicles underwent ballistic and automotive testing beginning in March 2007. The test plan included three phases of developmental tests (DT) of increasing scope as well as initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E). Phase I included a limited evaluation by users. Phase II further evaluated vehicles at the desired level of performance against the ballistic threat, added more endurance miles to the automotive portion of the test, and included mission equipment such as radios and other electronic systems. Phase III raised the bar for ballistic performance to the emerging threat and assessed non-ballistic protection to include near-lightning strikes, high-altitude electromagnetic pulse, and nuclear, biological, and chemical decontamination tests. The automotive portion of the test increased endurance to 12,000 miles per vehicle. Developmental and operational tests were conducted from March 2007 through June 2008. Each of the six MRAP variants have also undergone IOT&E. All vehicles were rated operationally survivable and operationally effective with limitations by the Army Evaluation Center. These limitations were comprised of vehicle size, weight, mobility, and weapon dead space. All vehicles were also rated operationally suitable with limitations. These limitations were due to logistic shortfalls, payload restrictions, and restricted fields of view. MRAP Schedule and Performance Results Have Been Very Good: Schedule and performance results for the MRAP have been very good overall. At the time of our review in July 2008, nearly all of the developmental and operational testing had been completed; the Marine Corps, the buying command for the MRAP, had placed orders for 14,173 MRAPs; and, as of May 2008, a little more than a year after the first contracts were awarded, 9,121 vehicles had been delivered. As of July 2009, 16,204 vehicles have been produced and 13,848 vehicles have been fielded in two theaters of operation. Total procurement funding for the MRAP vehicles, mostly through supplemental appropriations, was about $22.7 billion. According to DOD officials, the MRAP is providing safe, sustainable, and survivable transport for troops in the theater. It recognizes that MRAPs have limitations, particularly in the area of off- road mobility and transportability. Nonetheless, MRAPs are considered outstanding vehicles for specific missions. Twenty-one months elapsed from the time the need was first identified in February 2005 until the sole source IDIQ contract was awarded and subsequent orders were placed for the first 144 vehicles in November 2006. Three months elapsed between the award of the sole source contract and the delivery of vehicles under the orders placed pursuant to the contract in February 2007--about the same time the IDIQ contracts were awarded to multiple vendors for more vehicles. Testing of vehicles delivered under orders placed pursuant to the newly awarded contracts began one month later in March 2007. Initial operational capability was accomplished in October 2007 or about 33 months after the need was first identified. Ultimately, MRAP vendors have successfully increased their production rates to meet the delivery requirement (see fig. 2). Production began in February 2007 with one vendor producing 10 vehicles. By March 2008-- a little more than a year after the contracts were awarded--6,935 vehicles had been produced. Figure 2: Actual Versus Planned Production (monthly): [Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] Month: February, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 10; Vehicles produced, actual: 10. Month: March, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 29; Vehicles produced, actual: 29. Month: April, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 75; Vehicles produced, actual: 77. Month: May, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 138; Vehicles produced, actual: 137. Month: June, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 227; Vehicles produced, actual: 200. Month: July, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 373; Vehicles produced, actual: 349. Month: August, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 548; Vehicles produced, actual: 517. Month: September, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 810; Vehicles produced, actual: 825. Month: October, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 1,243; Vehicles produced, actual: 1,278. Month: November, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 2,155; Vehicles produced, actual: 2,118. Month: December, 2007; Vehicles produced, planned: 3,231; Vehicles produced, actual: 3,305. Month: January, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 4,496; Vehicles produced, actual: 4,233. Month: February, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 5,795; Vehicles produced, actual: 5,658. Month: March, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 6,834; Vehicles produced, actual: 6,935. Month: April, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 7,994; Vehicles produced, actual: 7,970. Month: May, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 9,068; Vehicles produced, actual: 9,049. Month: June, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 9,987; Vehicles produced, actual: 9,946. Month: July, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 11,017; Vehicles produced, actual: 10,925. Month: August, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 11,997; Vehicles produced, actual: 12,028. Month: September, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 12,922; Vehicles produced, actual: 12,959. Month: October, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 13,481; Vehicles produced, actual: 13,577. Month: November, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 14,148; Vehicles produced, actual: 14,186. Month: December, 2008; Vehicles produced, planned: 14,498; Vehicles produced, actual: 14,700. Month: January, 2009; Vehicles produced, planned: 14,900; Vehicles produced, actual: 14,923. Month: February, 2009; Vehicles produced, planned: 15,185; Vehicles produced, actual: 15,261. Month: March, 2009; Vehicles produced, planned: 15,459; Vehicles produced, actual: 15,575. Month: April, 2009; Vehicles produced, planned: 15,766; Vehicles produced, actual: 15,775. Source: GAO analysis of Joint Program Office data. [End of figure] According to DOD officials, the MRAP provides survivable, safe, and sustainable vehicles for troops in theater. It is recognized that MRAPs have limitations, particularly in the area of off-road mobility and transportability. Nevertheless, MRAPs met minimum requirements for specific missions. Based on an earlier survey of over 300 soldiers interviewed in the field, warfighters were satisfied with MRAP overall, which offers significant improvement in survivability. MRAP vehicles were seen as well suited for combat logistics patrols, route clearance missions, raids, quick reaction forces, and other missions requiring large, dismounted force. MRAP vehicles were seen as not well suited for mounted patrols in constrained urban areas or extensive operations in off-road operations. Many Lessons Learned, Many Challenges Remain: As with any acquisition of this nature, there are lessons to be learned. On the positive side, it appears that quick action by the Secretary of Defense to declare the MRAP program DOD's highest priority and give it a DX rating allowed the government and the contractors access to more critical materials than otherwise would have been available. The availability of funding mostly through supplemental appropriations was essential. In addition, the decisions to 1) use only proven technologies, 2) keep requirements to a minimum, 3) infuse significant competition into the contracting strategy, and 4) keep final integration responsibility with the government are all practices that led to positive outcomes. Challenges remain in the form of reliability, mobility, and safety, which have required some modifying of the designs, postproduction fixes, and adapting how vehicles were to be used. Also, long term sustainment costs for MRAP are not yet well understood and the services are only now deciding how MRAP will fit into their longer term organizations. This combination of actions executed to address the urgent need for accelerating the delivery of MRAP vehicles to theater was innovative and effective. Major vendors and key subcontractors responded to the urgency communicated by the department. According to vendor officials from four of the companies, they collectively invested a substantial amount of their own capital in anticipation of MRAP work. For example, some vendors purchased steel and other critical components in advance of delivery orders for MRAP vehicles in order to meet projected time lines. In other cases, vendors purchased or developed new facilities for MRAP production. Multiple vendors also formed teaming arrangements to meet the increase in vehicle delivery demands. As stated above, these actions on the part of the contractors were not required under their contracts and were done at their own risk. On the down side, because of unique designs, operating procedures, and maintenance for multiple vehicles from multiple vendors, vehicle maintenance and support has been somewhat complicated. To ease maintenance and support concerns in the near term, the MRAP program office established a centralized training entity where maintainers would be cross-trained on multiple vendors' vehicles. Longer term, a key challenge for DOD will be to effectively manage maintenance personnel and vehicle repair parts without sacrificing vehicle operational availability. Also, long term sustainment costs for MRAP are not yet projected and budgeted. The Services are only now deciding how to fit MRAP vehicles into their organizational structures. Another lesson, based on operational use of the MRAP vehicles, was their lack of maneuverability and off-road capability. As a result, DOD is in the process of acquiring an all terrain version of the MRAP to address the more difficult terrain and road conditions in Afghanistan. While most of the vehicles met ballistic requirements, other issues were identified (reliability, mobility and handling, and safety). These issues required some modifying of the designs, postproduction fixes, or adapting how vehicles were to be used. Testing of proposed solutions to more advanced threats continues. The program office continues to enhance MRAP vehicle system performance through capability insertion initiatives executed via engineering change proposals. Such changes are verified through testing. This testing will be an ongoing process as additional upgrades are applied. Broader Lessons and Implications from the MRAP Acquisition: What were the keys in DOD meeting the urgent requirement for fielding MRAP in a timely manner? First, DOD kept the requirements simple, clear, and flexible and did not dictate a single acceptable solution. Second, DOD made sure that only mature technologies and stable designs were used by setting a very short and inflexible schedule. DOD acting as integrator of government furnished equipment after initial delivery eliminated some risk and uncertainty. Third, MRAP was also given the highest possible acquisition priority and the participating contractors responded in positive ways to meet the needs. Fourth, full and timely funding for the acquisition was a definite plus. The question is, can this formula be applied to all of DOD's major acquisitions and the broader acquisition process? The first two keys--simple requirements and mature technologies--certainly can be and, in fact, recent changes to the department's acquisition policies and acquisition reform legislation passed by the Congress should enable these practices to be implemented easier than in the past. However, the MRAP program also owes it success to the third and fourth key practices as well--a DX rating as the highest priority acquisition in the department and nearly unlimited funding to meet the urgent need--that are not scalable to the broader acquisition process. Not every program can be a highest priority and acquisition funds are constrained. While the MRAP acquisition benefited from all of the practices mentioned above, the biggest differentiator between that rapid acquisition and other more common acquisitions in DOD was that it established requirements that could be achieved with existing technologies. Recent studies by the Defense Science Board[Footnote 6], the Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Panel (DAPA),[Footnote 7] and GAO all indicate that the department can and should acquire and deliver weapon systems that fulfill urgent warfighter needs to the field much more quickly. The DSB study recommends a dual acquisition path that allows for a "rapid" acquisition process for urgent needs and "deliberate" acquisition processes for others. It recommends a new agency, proposed as the Rapid Acquisition and Fielding Agency, that would be focused on speed, utilizing existing technologies, and acquisition flexibility to achieve the "75 percent solution" quickly. The DAPA Panel report, among other things, recommended that the acquisition process should never exceed 6 years from its beginning to initial operational capability of the acquired weapon system. It stated that mature technologies and achievable requirements are critical to the success of such time certain development efforts. GAO has issued multiple reports under our "best practices" body of work that underscore the need for faster development cycles and the need for mature technologies, well understood requirements, systems engineering knowledge, and incremental delivery of capabilities to enable quicker deliveries. As early as 1999[Footnote 8], we concluded that successful product developments separated technology development from product development, invested time and money in ensuring that their technology base was vibrant and cutting edge, and eliminated technology risk from acquisitions. We noted that the DOD's science and technology (S&T) organization would need to be organized and structured differently, provided more funding to take new technologies to higher levels of maturity, and would have to coordinate better with the department's acquisition community to achieve the synergies necessary to reduce cycle times. We made recommendations along those lines. We believe that the "game changer" today in achieving rapid acquisition is the technology base. Finally, a broader lesson learned is that it may be time to invest the time, money, and management skills in the S&T community to enable the effectiveness we expect from the acquisition community. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. I will be happy to answer any of your questions. Contacts and Staff Acknowledgements: For future questions about this statement, please contact me on (202) 512-4841 or email@example.com. Individuals making key contributions to this statement include William R. Graveline, Paul Williams, Dayna Foster, Danny Owens, [End of section] Footnotes: [1] Rapid Acquisition of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-884R]; July 15, 2008. [2] An IDIQ contract is a type of indefinite delivery contract that provides for an indefinite quantity of supplies or services within stated limits, during a fixed period. The government places orders for individual requirements. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.504. [3] Major defense acquisition programs are those estimated to require eventual total research, development, test and evaluation expenditures of more than $365 million or procurement expenditures of more than $2.19 billion in fiscal year 2000 constant dollars. [4] Only the Marine Corps acquired these vehicles. The Army is pursuing a separate acquisition program to replace its current fleet of vehicles that perform this mission. [5] A non-developmental item means any previously developed item of supply used exclusively for government purposes by a federal agency, a state or local government, or a foreign government with which the United States has a mutual defense cooperation agreement; any item described above that requires only minor modifications or modifications of a type customarily available in the commercial marketplace in order to meet the requirements of the procuring department or agency, or any item of supply being produced that does not meet the requirements described above solely because the item is not yet in use. FAR 2.101. [6] Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on the Fulfillment of Urgent Operational Needs, July 2009. [7] A Report by the Assessment Panel of the Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Project "Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment, January 2006. [8] Best Practices: Better Management of Technology Development Can ImproveWeapo System Outcomes [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/NSIAD-99-162], July 30, 1999. [End of section] GAO's Mission: The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation and investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and accountability of the federal government for the American people. GAO examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO's commitment to good government is reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and reliability. Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony: The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no cost is through GAO's Web site [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 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The Blackburn Beverley
ABOVE: XB288 at Gutersloh 1956. Photo: Barry Flahey.
Sgt Brian George
Brian George died in the crash of XL150 on 15th December 1967. Sarah Henderson, his daughter, who was 2 years old at the time, is seeking information and/or photos of her father.
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text: Not sure how I feel about this tea. It smells AMAZING but tastes mediocre. I was expecting a really creamy-tasting tea, but in reality it's very tart. In the store I was tossing up between fruitalicious and strawberries and cream. There was a free taster for fruitalicious, and I thought it tasted really nice, but the girl told me strawberries and cream was 'creamier' tasting, so I decided to give it a go. I wish I had purchased fruitalicious now…. this tea is way too tart for my liking.


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With Small Town Capitalism in Western India Douglas Haynes has provided an in-depth historiographical study of the Indian artisanal economy in colonial and early post-colonial India, which is exhaustive in detail and, at the same time, constitutes a welcome contribution to a shift in emphasis with regard to a number of debates on modern Indian history. While Haynes' work consciously starts as an attempt to provide an alternative framework to the de-industrialization paradigm, its actual contribution is larger than this: Haynes has provided a study which provides highly detailed insights into the actual livelihoods and living standards of artisans in the textile industry of western India, instead of focusing on the situation of the industry, and in this way he provides material that will be of high interest to scholars working on many different fields of modern Indian history, including among others work relations, labor conditions, gender relations, entrepreneurship and the development of capitalism in India, and migration. Though inspired by the work of other scholars, including both Tirthankar Roy and Jan Breman, the study critically engages with their approaches in an attempt to refute the tendencies of many historians to place the informal 'outside history' in a context in which clear boundaries between the formal and the informal are difficult to ascertain.
The originality of Haynes' approach lies in the precise combination of written and oral sources which was made possible by an almost two decades-long process of research that enables the author to give similar weight to oral sources and the documentary record. In combination, the two kinds of sources provide extremely valuable insights into the parts of the historical development that typically remain outside of the purview of 'formal' history. While Haynes has published parts of his research on the artisanal economy of western India in earlier articles, the book brings out a variety of new perspectives and does so, to put it simply, in an admirably comprehensive and stringent way. While it certainly does not provide a linear narrative of transition, it certainly constitutes a narrative of transition (or change) which benefits strongly from the scope of the book.
It starts with a contextual chapter, which serves to place a new perspective on the de-industrialization thesis. Far from being merely a revisionist historiography, the main point brought into the discourse by Haynes here is that while de-industrialization may not have been the straightforward process it has often been made out to be, the study of textile production in colonial India tends to be restricted to the displacement of artisans by the emerging textile mills or else to macro-level studies of the textile output. Both of these, Haynes argues, serve to conceal the rather complex and shifting situations faced by the weavers themselves or, in other words, of weavers' individual and collective agency and their efforts to cope in the face of rapidly changing markets and socioeconomic conditions. Haynes then continues to provide a thick description of the various layers of contextual parameters which made up the world of Indian weavers from the last decades of the 19th century to the early post-colonial period, covering among others the rise (and decline) of urban weaving centers, the development of consumption patterns and the attempts by weavers to find niche products to evade competition from Indian mills and imported textiles, and the changing role of merchants, moneylenders and karkhandars (workshop owners).
While these chapters focus on the ways in which weavers were able to cope with fluid conditions in the places where they were able to do so – and therefore tend to paint a picture of modest success – Haynes rectifies any such assumption in his depiction of the distressingly low living standards of most weavers in chapter 5 which forms an essential ingredient in his narrative that complements the earlier depiction of market changes. While a variety of weavers' entrepreneurial activities were crucial, according to the author, to cope with the large-scale changes brought on by the newly emerging socioeconomic and political situations, they were able to safeguard the mass of the weavers' (partial) independence in the production process, though only at the high cost of continued poverty. The oral sources collected by Haynes are especially valuable in this part of his narrative to depict the continued trade-offs between the individual weaving families' struggle to safeguard their livelihoods and their attempts to maintain as much independence from the merchants, moneylenders, mill owners and karkhandars as well as from the colonial state's social programs in cases of famine.
Following the in-depth depiction of weavers' lives and livelihoods in colonial India, Haynes goes on to narrate the state's responses to the continued poverty of artisans, notably including the colonial state's failure to fully comprehend the functioning of the artisanal economy which according to the author provided one of the main obstacles to the success of limited welfare programs and the state's initial attempts to introduce cooperatives. In a welcome deviation from historiographical custom, Haynes draws a line of continuity from the late colonial state's small-scale industry policies directed at artisans to the opportunities and problems posed by the wartime economy of the 1940s and early post-colonial policies. In doing so, Haynes provides a detailed narrative of the incremental loss of control over artisanal production by the merchant-moneylender (sahukar) which, instead, increasingly shifted towards the karkhandars who were better placed to take advantage of the shifts in markets as well as in state policy and emerged as the focal points of the artisanal economy, often as heads of cooperatives and in close alliance with local political establishments, during the 1950s. This shift of control over the artisanal economy, according to the author, went hand in hand with a shift in 'the politics of the workshop': the organisation of artisanal labor in the face of state attempts to provide and extend labor regulation as well as the attempts of small-scale capitalists to counter and evade these regulations, at times in connivance with the representatives of the everyday state.
Douglas Haynes has provided one of the most interesting recent accounts of the history of labor in modern India, situated at the interface of the formal and the informal sector, and the laborious development of capitalism within the Indian economy. Crucially, though, Haynes' work is clearly transgressing the confines of labor history and will be of major interest to a much wider range of scholars of modern Indian history and society.